Thursday, April 12

Valley of the Suns

Managed to catch the 2nd half of the game last night on tv, as the three people in Vancouver not watching the Canucks were able to catch the Suns-Sonics game on Sportsnet (thank you, Steve Nash!)

For those who weren't able to watch the game, the PI's Gary Washburn sums it perfectly:

"The result was more a reflection of the Sonics' lack of depth than Phoenix's dominance."Amen, Gary, amen. At one point, the Sonics cut the score to 67-65 if memory serves, but the Suns just slowly edged away after that. A couple reasons why it happened:

-Nick Collison was a total non-factor. Whatever juice he drank in the first two months of the season has disappeared, and nowhere was it more patently evident than last night. As Eddie Johnson (!) pointed out on the Suns' telecast, and be patient, this is a long metaphor, "You know how when you go to a restaurant and have a great meal, then you go back to that restaurant ten more times and that meal never tastes as good? That's how Collison's playing tonight. He keeps thinking he's going to have that same meal that he did a couple of months ago, but it just ain't happening."

-Randy Livingston is a long ways away from being ready to play PG for the Sonics. It's just not fair to expect a guy to come and run the offense when he doesn't even know the plays. Livingston got called for a 5-second violation on an inbounds play; I think the ref had to pull the rule book out of his pocket so he'd use the right hand gesture. When was the last time you saw that happen in the NBA?

-Andre Brown left Shawn Marion open for 3's on two consecutive possesions while he (Brown) got tangled up in the paint.

-I know Rashard scored a bunch of points, but both he and Wilcox didn't look good to me, at least from what I saw in the second half. Wilcox seemed intent on dunking on every play, and I can't begin to count how many times he lost the ball in traffic. Lewis was jacking it up on every touch, and on at least two occasions he held the ball for at least 7-8 seconds waiting for something to happen offensively.

On the positive front, Mike Wilks really looked good, especially on one possession in the second half when he took the ball to the hole a la Steve Nash. The young man is definitely capable of being a backup 2 in this league.

Even more positive, the Sonics edged closer to the 5th spot in the draft. Vive le lotterie!

By the way, Gelabale looked decent in his relatively limited minutes. He still gambles a bit too much on defense, but that's too be expected of someone his age and (in)experience. I really think he has the capability of becoming an Antonio Daniels-type player; someone who can guard both guard positions as well as smaller small forwards. It's just sad that we're forced to watch him get only 18 minutes, while Wilks and Rashard get 40+.